Jules A. Martinez Olivieri

Brown Church

History & Biography

“Written by a scholar and pastor, Chao Romero's Brown Church breaks new ground in Christian evangelical studies. This work traces the experience, praxis, and contribution of Latina/o Christians to a conception of the Christian faith that sees and enacts the relationship of the Gospel and societal transformation as necessarily interdependent. We find in this account how historically marginalized church communities sustained their Christian faith while pursuing justice and political conditions conducive to the social and spiritual well-being of Latinas/os, even as they were ignored by many a majority-culture Christian. With an original methodology, Brown Church highlights the study of Latina/o spirituality by using tools from sociology, critical theory, history, and theology to center the longstanding presence of a suffering and joyous part of the body of Christ for the sake of the Gospel.”

In Search of Christ in Latin America

Theology

“The journey of Christianity in the Americas is not complete unless an account of Jesus Christ confessed and followed in Latin America is given in its theological and religious depth. Samuel Escobar's work is a necessary map for this very task. It traces the histories of how a contextual Christology emerged from the underside of modernity and the margins of western Christianity to confront the realities of the impoverished and suffering masses. Here we find a Christian witness that announces Jesus as the liberator in history for the flourishing of all peoples. This journey takes the reader through theologies grounded in pastoral practice that seek to parse out a historical conception of God's salvific acts. From the Roman Catholic liberation theologians to the nascent Protestant evangelical theology in the 1970s, Escobar's cartography of faith is both a sacred memory and a constructive path for a Jesus lived and commended.”